Troubled Waters

Troubled Waters

Source: earthobservatory

9/25/2021

It was once a source of great abundance—particularly fossil fuels and fish—for the people of Venezuela. Now Lake Maracaibo is mostly abundant with pollution from leaking oil and excess nutrients.

Spanning 13,000 square kilometers (5,000 square miles) in northwestern Venezuela, Lake Maracaibo is one of South America’s largest lakes and one of the oldest in the world. Though it was filled with freshwater thousands of year ago, Maracaibo is now an estuarine lake connected to the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea by a narrow strait. That strait was significantly expanded in the 1930–50s by dredging for ship traffic. Now the north end of the lake is brackish, while the south end is mostly fresh due to abundant flows from nearby rivers.

In satellite images acquired in September 2021, Lake Maracaibo was swirling with shades of green, tan, and gray that traced the flow of currents and eddies. The sources of those colors were algae, river sediment outflows, and crude oil leaks. The image at the top of this page was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on September 25. The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 observed the scene below on September 10.

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3276	Man fishing for trout off W.Va. bridge charged, fined, Natural Resources Police say	wchstv	2021-11-05	US
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3294	France detains UK boat as spat over fishing rights escalates	CNN	2021-10-29	UK
3295	Studying sturgeon: Biologists have giant questions about monster fish in upper Snake River	idahostatejournal	2021-10-22	US
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3298	A Q&A with Mark Spitzer, renowned expert on fugly fish	4state news	2021-10-25	US
3299	This odd Colorado River fish faces an uncertain future	nationalgeographic	2021-10-18	US
3300	Norway reveals plans for river trap system to protect wild salmon	theguardian	2021-10-21	NO

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